The Internet has quickly become a popular means for transmitting information because of the world-wide access it provides to information resources. The information on the Internet is available in a variety of formats and it can have educational, entertainment, or business purposes. The World Wide Web (the “Web”) is one of the largest and most popular distributed computing networks that make-up the Internet. The Web comprises interconnected computers from around the world. A computer connected to the Internet can download digital information from Web server computers. The Web comprises resources and clients that communicate digital information and instructions typically using a format known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). These instructions can include information for formatting text, linking to digital data, and receiving digital data.
Typically, the Web server computers that comprise the World Wide Web have files of information called web pages that can be displayed on a remote computer. A person operating the remote client computer connected to the Internet can use a software module called a browser to view the files of information available on the Web. The files of information, or web pages, can include menu choices and highlighted words that provide connections to further information.
Somewhat analogous to a yellow pages telephone directory, web pages are commonly used today to provide information. However, beyond just traditional business information available in a telephone directory, web pages can provide access to a wide variety of personal, educational, commercial, and entertainment information. Accordingly, many people, who are not necessarily proficient with HTML, have the need to create their own customized web pages.
There are a variety of ways a person can create a web page. One approach is to use one of the commercially available HTML software modules that are specifically designed for creating web pages. Another approach is to draft text for a web page with a word processor and use a conversion function available in some word processing software modules to convert the text styles into HTML code. Using a word processing environment to create web pages is advantageous because people are generally familiar with the features and tools of word processing programs. Furthermore, a word processor is a natural environment for writing the text portions of web pages without the concerns of HTML code.
However, HTML conversion features employed by conventional word processors are limited because HTML can be overly complex and inflexible to work with. This limitation can cause inconsistency in the HTML that is produced with each conversion. For example, you could have two different documents that follow largely the same design and content model, but the word processor conversion process produces disparate HTML for each. Furthermore, the conversion feature of conventional word processors does not support the customization of HTML code. Thus, when using a word processor, the writer creating the web pages often must revise and edit the HTML code after the conversion process.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for a system which will support the easy creation of web pages of varying design. Specifically, a need exists to be able to easily create web pages within the familiar environment of a word processor using the powerful templates available in most word processors. A further need exists to be able to draft web pages with HTML code achieving the desired goals of uniformity and customization.